John Dobbyn - Neon Dragon

I flashed a business card from a computer retailer who had recently tried to sell me a laptop computer. That got her attention. I didn’t say it was my name on the card. If she wanted to assume it, that was her business.

I asked her to call Manny Morales in data entry. She took me out of order because mine was probably the easiest and least emotional demand she had had to deal with all shift.

She grabbed one of the three phones in front of her and tapped in four digits. She asked for Morales. In about three seconds, she handed the phone over the counter to me. With me on the shelf, she was back in the maelstrom that had now grown by a young couple who were reaching high C over a car theft. In the confusion around me, I could have been talking in an isolation booth.

I cupped my hand over the phone and said, “Officer Morales?”

“Not ‘officer,’ just ‘mister.’ What can I do for you?”

The words were not much, but the rolled r ’s and Latino cadence of the syllables were like Mozart to my ears. I followed suit by coloring the vowels and pointing the consonants until Manny and I sounded like a couple of muchachos from San Juan. I explained that the software company had sent me to check the computer system for viruses. Since Manny’s job involved the keyboard and not the internals of the computer system, I was hoping that his training gave him a notion of what a virus was, but no clue as to how you diagnose or medicate it. I had taken a computer course at Harvard, which at least let me bandy about a few words of computer literacy.

I caught the desk officer’s attention long enough to put her back on the line. At Manny’s request, the officer gave me a clip-on pass that got me into the bowels of the station house. I followed directions back to the computer room, where I spotted a long, lean, white-shirt-and-tie type, about three inches taller and ten pounds lighter than me, sitting at a computer console. He had the dark hair and well-structured cheekbones to go with the accent.

There were five other men and two women at other consoles in the room. Only one of the women came unglued from the screen long enough to take note of my presence as I crossed to the one I assumed was Manuel Morales.

Manny shook hands and pulled up a second roller chair with a sweep of one long leg. I took it and mumbled “ Com-esta? ” on the way down.

He grinned and came back with, “OK, man. What’s up?”

I took the hint that we were perhaps not in a haven of racial impartiality and switched to English.

“How long since they checked for viruses?”

He slouched his long frame back in an easy posture, which told me that no alarms had gone off yet. I carefully avoided the serious crime of impersonating a police officer. I had absolutely no idea of the degree of criminality attached to breaking into a police station.

“I don’t know, man. I just got in here last week.”

Alleluia.

“Then I guess you’re not aware of our company policy. We give follow-up service to check for viruses in the programming every two weeks for the first three months. They’ll be giving you training. Let’s run through it.”

I swiveled up to the side of the computer to let him follow my lead and slide in.

“We can do it with any sample report. Let’s call up the list of police reports for-let’s see, let’s take yesterday afternoon and evening. Why don’t you go ahead and call those up while I start my report?”

I fiddled with a notebook while Manny’s lean fingers played the keyboard like a piano. The screen responded with a list of police reports by time of day. At that point, I slipped in and took the keyboard. I knew enough to scroll down the list until I found the report of the murder of Mr. Chen filed at 4:30 PM the previous day. I centered the cursor on that report while Manny slipped back in the chair, obviously at ease with the break from the boredom of entering data written in stilted policeese. I hit ‘enter,’ and there before my eyes was the forbidden fruit.

I scrolled through it to the section on witnesses. True enough, there were two. I feigned nonchalance while playing with the cursor and any function key that would not change the screen. I jotted the two Chinese names and addresses on a notepad in script only I could fathom and closed the book on my virus report.

Manny displayed precious little interest in my little charade, which made the close-out easy enough.

“OK, Manny. No problem. If anything ever looks unusual on the screen, just call the company. We’ve had all kinds of virus problems out in Springfield. Buena suerte, man.”

If nothing else, Manny was the master of nonchalance. Before I could bounce out of the chair, mentally giving myself a high five for brilliance in espionage, Manny swiveled himself clockwise, which put his mouth close to my ear.

“ Buena suerte yourself, man. You may need the luck. You know what you’re messin’ with?”

He had me close to paralysis.

“I don’t get you, man.”

He said it low, and casual, and in Spanish. “That’s a crock about the virus, brother. They have automatic virus protection built into the program. I know you’re a defense lawyer. I saw you in court once. You did a good job for one of the brothers.”

I looked him in the dark, emotionless eyes. I got no reading, so I still didn’t know whether or not I was an ex-lawyer.

“Does that mean no whistle?”

“It means you just came through here to check for virus.”

The relief squeezed out in a major exhale.

“I don’t want to push it, but why?”

“I noticed you checked the Bradley case. We got orders not to give a copy of that report to defense counsel-which, of course, I didn’t do. I think the DA’s tying your hands with this Bradley kid. I’m not going to buck the DA. I just choose to believe your cover. I’m not a cop. I just punch keys here.”

I whispered, “ Gracias, man.” His elbow stopped my rise out of the chair.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I looked back at him with a question mark.

“You know what you’re messin’ with?”

“Like what?”

His eyes scanned the room without the slightest movement of his head. He was apparently satisfied, but he stuck to Spanish.

“You know the dudes around Center Street in the Plain? The Cavallos?”

“I know they can get dicey. Why?”

“You know nothing, man. They could take out your kidneys while you’re reaching for your wallet. What I’m saying is that they’re choirboys compared to what you’re going to find in Chinatown.”

“You talking about gangs? If they’re so bad in C’town, how come I never heard of them?”

He sprang up and gave me a head-beckon. I followed him out to the corridor that led back to the front desk. He stopped halfway down the corridor.

“You better get out of here.”

He was right. I started to move, and he moved with me.

“You never heard because they keep it in-house. Chinese preying on Chinese. The cops don’t interfere much for reasons we don’t need to go into. You maybe break the circle. You move into their game without knowing the rules…”

He shook his head in a way that made me glad he didn’t put it into words that could generate nightmares. I shook his hand with a “ gracias ” that came from deep down.

In thirty seconds, I was back on the street taking stock. I had two names and addresses in Chinatown, my bar membership intact, and a lump the size of a wonton in my chest.

It was about six in the evening when I blended into the rush-hour flow that was swimming aggressively up Tremont Street like spawning salmon. I was with the tide as far as the Park Street station, and against it from there to Boylston Street. I had built up a bit of aggression of my own, since the only thing I had had to eat since my ritual Dunkin’ Donut in the morning was that homicidal hot dog. A left on Boylston Street led through the bottom chamber of what’s left of the pornographic cesspool, known euphemistically as the “Combat Zone,” and emerged on Essex Street at the outer boundary of Chinatown.